


The Kiss of the Spider-Serum Job

by cyndisision



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Needs a Hug, Insecurity, Leverage AU, Multi, Relationship Negotiation, Rivals to Lovers, egregious pseudoscience, polyamory negotiation, so many Marvel cameos and references, which I figure is faithful to both comics and Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndisision/pseuds/cyndisision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Former CIA agent Phil Coulson brought together the finest thieves he knows, to help ordinary folks fight back against the corporations that ruin their lives. The only problem is, two of those finest thieves are his current lover Clint... and his ex, Natasha. How can a workaholic mastermind, a 'trained circus monkey', and a woman who could disembowel you with a spoon work things out between them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kiss of the Spider-Serum Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> _Prompt: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanov. I like Phil, but I much prefer his Secret Avengers or fanon characterization to the Agents of SHIELD one, so if at all possible please stick with that :) I'm really easy for these ships, I just love them interacting and snarking and being general bad asses._
> 
>  
> 
> _Leverage or Librarians style AU. Figuring out how to make the three or four of them work with an established couple (or two). The other Avengers finding out about their relationship._
> 
>  
> 
> I found myself in a tug of war between the part of my brain that just wants to write people in an empty room snarking at each other (with optional sexy sparring), and the part that wants to write a huge convoluted plot with lots of action and car chases. I hope this manages to straddle the line!

 

The young woman, maybe 20 years old at the outside, cast a glance over her shoulder as she hurried through the park. She drew her clothes more closely around her, the purple hoodie too thin for the chill October air. Nobody was visible on the path, but a shadow passed across one of the bushes and she picked up her pace.

When she turned back, a large man was blocking her path. He loomed several inches over her, his buzzed haircut doing nothing to hide his receding hairline. He left his hands in the pockets of his red tracksuit, but he still managed to exude menace.

“Miz Katherine,” he said in a thick Slavic accent, “your father sends me. You come home now.”

“My father can go to hell,” said Kate, backing up and sliding one hand into the back pocket of her jeans. Her voice shook a little, and she set her jaw, breathing hard through her nose to calm her panic.

The man took two strides, closing on her, his hand going to her throat. She managed to bring up her hand between her and the man, a keychain canister of mace clutched in it. The stream of spray splashed across the man’s cheek and into his eyes, and he reeled back, wiping at his face with his sleeve. As soon as he let go, Kate took off running.

“You regret this!” he bellowed, starting after her.

She pounded along the path, back the way she had come, trying to ignore the cold burn in her lungs. As she rounded the corner, she barely registered the two women sitting on the bench—one red-haired, and one dark-haired. They were deep in quiet conversation, and despite the season, they both held cups of ice-cream. When they saw Kate coming, they both paused with their spoons halfway to their lips.

The red-haired one glanced at Kate, glanced at the man chasing her, handed her ice-cream to her friend. “Jess, hold this would you?” she said, and strode toward the oncoming train of a man.

“You’re going to want to see this,” said the dark-haired one—Jess—conversationally, as Kate dashed past.

Despite herself, Kate stopped short and turned to follow the woman’s gaze. She was just in time to see the red-haired woman lay the huge man out flat in some kind of judo move that was too quick to follow. He started to try and sit up, but the tiny woman had somehow gotten her thighs wrapped around his throat, and in a few seconds he slumped back down, unconscious.

“Caramel gelato?” said Jess, holding the cup out to Kate.

 

“Thanks,” said Kate some twenty minutes later, wrapping her hands gratefully around the steaming mug of coffee.

“Sure,” said Natasha, trying to make her smile reassuring as she slid into the booth seat opposite.

“Tell us about what happened,” said Phil, who was much better at ‘reassuring’.

Across the room, Clint sat at the bar nursing a cheap beer. Sure, there were actual good beers on offer, but in times of stress he always went back to his roots, remembering the days when the only booze he could get his hands on were the cans of PBR he and Barney pilfered from Jacques. Sure, they’d both get their asses whooped when they were caught, but there was always the hope that this time—this time—they’d get away with it. It sure did inspire the urge to become a better thief. Since then, he’d stolen thousand-dollar bottles of scotch (for fun) and fifty-thousand-dollar bottles of wine (for profit), but to this day, in spite of it all, something about the taste of bad beer was reassuring.

And right now, he needed reassuring.

Natasha and Phil were sitting altogether too close in the narrow booth. Close enough for their shoulders and arms to brush. Close enough to smell each other’s scent.

It’s not that he believed for one moment that Phil would actually cheat on him, but every day a voice nagged at him that today would be the day Phil realized he could do better. Today would be the day he sat Clint down and gently, very gently, broke it to him. His voice would be so kind; his eyes would be so sad. He would hate hurting Clint, but he would do it anyway, and he would be right to do it.

Now that Phil’s mysterious, hyper-competent, smoking hot ex was back in the picture, Clint could practically hear the clock ticking.

“It’s my dad. I—” Kate was saying. She glanced around the pub, and lowered her voice even though the nearest patrons were three tables away. “I found out some things…”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah, he’s Derek Bishop?” She paused, waited for recognition.

Phil shook his head.

“Of Bishop Laboratories,” put in Natasha.

“Founder and CEO,” said Kate, a bitter note creeping into her voice. “There’s something sketchy going on with his business, and I… may have… yelled at him a bit, and run off. That’s when he sent his goon after me.” She paused, took a sip of coffee, snorted a laugh. “He has goons, apparently.” Her voice shook, and it was suddenly obvious how very young she was.

Natasha and Phil shared a glance. Poor little heiresses weren’t their usual type of client, and normally they required something a bit more specific than “something sketchy” going on with a

business, but Natasha could practically see Phil’s paternal instincts kicking into gear. He sat up straighter, no doubt getting ready to overrule her objections (or suggest they take their argument elsewhere), but Natasha gave him her most genuine smile. This protectiveness was always one of her favorite of Phil’s traits.

“Tell us all about it,” she said, leaning forward to put her hand gently over Kate’s where it lay on the table, “and we’ll see what we can do.”

 

Natasha did some reading of her own while she waited for Skye to prepare the briefing. Or rather, tried to do some reading. She was lounging on the couch, poring over a Businessweek interview with Derek Bishop from 2011, when she realized she’d started reading the same paragraph three times.

Thu-dunk.

Thu-dunk.

Thu-dunk.

“Would you quit that?” she said without looking up.

“Quit what?” said Clint, catching the tennis ball as it bounced off the unfinished brick wall yet again. He was flopped in an armchair, his legs over one arm and his head on the other.

Natasha sighed, flipped the cover over her tablet, and sat up. “Why don’t you get a dog or something? Take it for walks. Work off some of that excess energy.”

“Nah,” said Clint, tossing the ball. “I’m fine.”

Natasha flicked her hand out, quick as a snake, and grabbed the ball before it landed in Clint’s hand. “I wasn’t suggesting it for your benefit.”

“But it’s raining,” he said, and cast a pouting glance at the rain-streaked window.

Natasha took a deep, calming breath. “You are an actual child.”

Clint flinched, but quickly covered his hurt expression. “Some of us have hobbies aside from plotting the most efficient ways to murder people.”

“I don’t—I haven’t—” Natasha shook herself, plastered on the blank calm once more, even managed a light, secretive smile. “Phil wouldn’t be happy if I murdered them, now would he? Besides, rendering someone unconscious is so much more of an interesting challenge.”

“Now see? That’s why people think you’re creepy.”

“Besides, we were talking about you. What hobbies do you have, exactly?”

“I—have hobbies.”

“None of us have hobbies, Clint, or we wouldn’t do—this.” Natasha waved her hand to encompass the whole of Phil’s apartment: the sleek industrial kitchen; the bank of computer monitors where Skye and Jess were preparing the briefing; the spiral stairs that led up to Phil’s loft bedroom, where Phil was currently holed up doing… something.

Natasha unwrapped herself from her blanket and placed her tablet carefully on the glass of the coffee table. She stood, grabbed hold of her left elbow with her right hand, and pulled it up toward her shoulder in a careful stretch.

“Now what are you doing? Getting ready to render me unconscious?”

“Tempting, but no. I figure, since you have cabin fever, and I’ve given up on getting any work done, I could introduce you to my hobby.” She stretched the other arm. “Stand there,” she said, and pointed at a spot on the large rug just inside the front door.

Clint stood there.

Natasha took up a ready stance, limbs loose.

“Show me how you’d take me down.”

Clint came at her, faking a right hook, but when he followed up with his left jab, she ducked low, sweeping his legs from under him with her foot. The rug did little to cushion his fall.

“Decent feint,” said Natasha. “Follow-up needs work.”

He pushed himself to his feet, rubbing at his hip. “That’s going to bruise!”

“Didn’t they teach you how to fall, in the circus?”

“On mats! We tumbled. On mats.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but stepped back to give him room, and they traded blows for a minute or two.

“You’re going easy on me,” panted Clint.

“Of course I am,” Natasha replied, barely breaking a sweat as she dodged his kick. “You can’t learn anything if you spend the whole time flat on your back.”

“Says who?” said Clint, waggling his eyebrows, and took an elbow jab to the chest in return. “Ow!”

“Will you keep it down?” called Skye from across the room. “I can’t listen to this audio over your epic dorky flirting.”

“We’re not—” Clint began, flustered, but Natasha cut him off.

“If you’d hurry up and finish,” she called back at Skye, “we wouldn’t be so desperate to pass the time.” She adjusted Clint’s hold on her arm. “See, if you pull my arm out further, I’m off-balance. Then you can get your leg under mine and use your knee as a fulcrum to throw me.”

He did, and Natasha hit the rug for the first time. She accepted his hand up and got smoothly to her feet.

“Not bad,” she said, allowing a small, but genuine, smile to quirk her lips.

“Why were you reading up on the mark, anyway?” Clint wanted to know once they’d fallen back into a sparring rhythm. “You could just wait for Skye to finish up.”

“I’m used to working alone,” Natasha said. “Doing my own legwork.”

“You’re saying you could do all of our jobs?”

“You said that, not me.” She deflected his swing neatly. “But yes.”

“Not mine.”

“Really? Your job seems to consist mainly of falling backward off buildings. I’m pretty sure I could manage it.”

“And your job consists of punching goons in the face. I could do that with my eyes—”

His back hit the rug abruptly, knocking the air from his lungs. By the time the room came back into focus, Natasha was kneeling astride him, her forearm across his throat, not putting pressure on, just letting him know that she could. If he tried anything.

“You were saying?” she said, leaning in until her face was a few inches from his.

Clint could only wheeze in reply.

He was saved by the sound of footsteps on the wooden treads of the spiral staircase.

“Are we ready?” Phil said, adjusting one of the cuffs of his neat button-down shirt. He looked over at Natasha, still straddling Clint on the ground, and raised one eyebrow.

“Ready, boss,” said Skye, tapping at the touchscreen.

Natasha finally relented, lifting her arm from his throat. She gave him a couple of gentle pats on the cheek. “I hope this has been educational,” she said. “It certainly has been for me.”

She pushed to her feet and walked, cat-like, over to the rest of the team.

Clint waited for her back to be turned, and lifted his head a couple of inches, only to let it thunk back down on the rug. He was breaking all his own rules. It was one thing being on a team with his partner. It was another to be on a team with his partner’s ex, whom he didn’t know or trust. He could acknowledge, in the abstract, that said ex was hot, but developing an actual crush… no. That was a step too far.

 

“Derek Bishop, founder of Bishop Labs, world leader in biomedical research,” said Skye, bringing up an image onscreen. A middle-aged white man stood in front of a ski-lift, his arm around a beautiful Asian woman. Two girls in their early teens stood in front of them. All were wearing ostentatiously expensive ski gear and wide grins. “His wife Eleanor, their daughters Susan and Katherine. This was in Boulder, 2008, on the trip where his wife died.”

She flicked to the next image, this one from a magazine article about the homes of the rich and famous. Derek Bishop with a different woman. She was white, with dark hair styled in the kind of loose, casual waves that take a stylist an hour and a half to achieve. She looked about forty-five—the kind of forty-five that only rich women with a personal trainer and chef can achieve. The two lounged, all casual cashmere, in the kind of minimalist white surroundings that nobody can actually live in.

“This is from two years ago, after he married his second wife, society heiress Whitney Frost. Since they tied the knot, he’s become rather obsessed with death and youth.”

The third image was a form, headed with the text, “United Stated Patent.”

“He filed this patent six months ago. It’s deliberately vague, but I did some digging, and I think it has to do with a process that slows down ageing.”

“A process that—” broke in Phil, startled.

“Slows down ageing.” Skye flicked to more images: photos from inside a lab; medical research notes; four people in white lab coats, putting on a frozen smile for the camera. “I don’t really understand the mechanism—”

“I thought you were always saying you’re a genius,” teased Jess.

“A computer genius. You have no idea the shit I had to pull to get these research notes—anyway. I’m not a biologist, so I don’t really understand how it works, but they found a gene therapy of some kind, which slows down the rate of degeneration at a cellular level.”

“Wow, where can I get me some of this?” joked Jess. Then, at the various unimpressed looks the team were giving her, “What? I’m going to overtake Natasha soon if I’m not careful.”

“You’re at least a decade younger than I am,” Natasha said, examining her nails.

“That’s not very specific. And you never seem to age. What’s your story? Are you a vampire or something? Are you secretly a hundred years old?”

“What’s the catch?” asked Phil, mildly but intently.

They all fell silent and looked at him.

“Kate said she thought there was something sketchy going on. There’s a catch.”

“It’s… unethical, to say the least.” Skye flicked through more photos, one after the next. Each person lay unconscious in a medical bed, their skin gray and their hair thinning. “This woman is twenty-three years old. Twenty-eight. Nineteen.”

“They look…” Clint trailed off.

“They look like they’re older than I am,” said Phil. “How?”

“Their stem cells are extracted, and injected into another patient. In small quantities, it shouldn’t cause any problems. In large quantities… well, Derek Bishop isn’t known for his sense of moderation.”

“Does it work?” Natasha wanted to know.

Skye just pulled up another picture in reply: a candid shot of a familiar-looking woman, standing in the sweeping gardens of a mansion in the Hamptons; other ultra-rich people in formalwear mingled in the background. She wore a designer evening dress in a shade of dusky rose that set off her complexion perfectly, and held a half-full glass of champagne. “This is Whitney Frost.”

“When?” asked Jess. “Like fifteen years ago?”

“Last month.”

Jess blinked. “What.”

“I promise you, this is the 2014 holiday gala for the Maria Stark Foundation.”

Whitney looked young. Truly young, not great-makeup-and-lighting young. Even the hand holding the glass was unlined, with peachy skin and no visible veins.

“You can’t fake the hands,” said Natasha. “The hands never lie.”

“Except yours,” teased Jess, but she subsided when Natasha shot her a look.

“Well, it’s obvious what we have to do,” said Phil.

“The Hydra Gambit?” suggested Skye.

“The Mockingbird,” put in Jess.

“The Glim-Dropper,” said Clint, with confidence.

“Now you’re just making them up,” Natasha said, with a hint of a smile and an elbow jab to Clint’s ribs—gentle by her standards.

Clint failed to meet her eyes.

Phil pointed at each of them in turn. “No, no, in a manner of speaking, and no.” He returned Natasha’s smile and declared, “We’re going to pull the Kiss of the Spider-Serum.”

“What’s that?” asked Jess.

“A little something I just made up on the spot. Come on, let’s go steal immortality.”

 

As the gang dispersed, Phil put out a hand to grab Clint’s arm. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

Clint tensed, but didn’t shake off Phil’s hand. “Should there be?”

“No, there shouldn’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

Clint paused. “What makes you think something’s wrong?” he asked, stalling for time.

“I know you. I can tell when you’re sulking. I notice when you won’t talk to your team members.” He took a step closer, into Clint’s personal space, and put up one hand to cup Clint’s cheek. “What happened?”

“I’m fi—”

“And don’t say you’re fine.”

Clint let out a sigh. He couldn’t lie; he’d made a promise to himself. “Okay. I’m not fine. I just—I don’t understand why Natasha is here. She’s a lone wolf.” He refrained, somehow, from making finger quotes around ‘lone wolf.’

“I asked her to be here.”

“Yeah.” Clint tried not to be sullen. “You hand-picked her for your team.”

“I did. Because I trust her with my life. But don’t forget, I hand-picked you for a lot more than that.”

“I’m a competent thief at best.”

“First of all,” said Phil with a light smile, “don’t undersell yourself. What have I said about badmouthing my people? Secondly, you know I wasn’t just talking about your value to the team.”

Clint nodded, his eyes locked on a point somewhere around Phil’s left cheekbone.

“Hey, boss!” called Skye from across the room.

“Looks like I have a con to plan,” said Phil in a low voice, “but we’re not done talking about this.”

Clint watched him walk away, his veins flooding with an uncomfortable mix of apprehension and relief.

 

“Why do I have to be the server?” Clint muttered into the comm, pulling at his bow tie.

“Because you look pretty in the vest,” shot back Skye.

“If you prefer, you can try my four-inch heels,” said Natasha sweetly.

“Only if you need a thief with a sprained ankle.”

Skye laughed. “Well stop complaining, and make use of brilliantly watertight cover I.D. I made for you.”

“Fine,” grumbled Clint, “at least there are compensations.” He swiped a prawn… thingy… off the silver tray he was holding.

Jess and Natasha, meanwhile, were mingling their way around the gathered crowd, schmoozing closer and closer to Derek Bishop. So far they’d met four CEOs, two senators, and a Hollywood actor who made a big deal out of his charity work with medical non-profits.

Finally, they circled into Bishop’s orbit, and Jess put on her most brilliant smile.

“Mr. Bishop!” she said, her voice chiming.

“Derek, please,” he corrected, and took the hand she offered. His grip was firm but not, she noted, crushingly tight like so many businessmen with something to prove.

She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Congratulations on the new product launch, Derek.”

“Now if we’d met, I’m sure I’d remember your name, Ms.—?”

“Parker. Petra Parker. I’m Director of Business Development for Araña Biotech, and this is our Head of R&D, Natalie Rushman.”

Natasha could never manage a smile as bright as Jess’s, so she went for a few watts dimmer and a few shades more mysterious. Mysterious she could do.

“He’s eating out of Jess’s hand already,” muttered Skye into the comm from her base of operations, the back of a slick black Chevy van she insisted everyone go along with calling ‘Jemma.’

She’d tapped into the security feed, and was watching the whole scene play out. “How does she do that? It’s like she drugs them with a pheromone or something.”

“Uh, guys,” said Clint over comms, as he sauntered closer to his mark, “how am I supposed to get this dude’s keycard?”

Skye was distracted, her hands flying over the keyboard, but she spared time for an eyeroll. “Let him get close to you.”

“Isn’t that more Jess’s area?”

“Intel says not in this case,” Jess said, her head turned away from Bishop. She looked back to him in time to laugh at a joke he’d made.

“Oh?” Clint was confused… and then suddenly he wasn’t. “Ohhhh!” He squared his shoulders. “Right, OK, I can do this.”

“You look like you’re getting ready for a fight, not a flirtation,” said Natasha through her teeth. “Relax. It’s not like this is outside of your realm of experience, after all.”

Clint went from apprehensive to riled in the space of two seconds. Was that a dig? Was Natasha… jealous?

Fine. Riled, he could work with.

“Hors d’oeuvre, Sir,” he said, stepping up beside his mark—a little too close. He held up his tray of prawn thingies, hoping to distract the man while he snuck his hand into his pants pocket.

The mark, Bishop Labs’ Head of Security, waved him away. “I’m working. I’m not here to mix and mingle.” Then, seeing Clint properly for the first time, he added, “…more’s the pity.”

He shifted to get a better look, putting his pocket out of Clint’s reach. Clint, caught between the need to press closer and the urgent necessity of getting away, froze, which gave Security Guy long enough to get a grip on his elbow.

“Uh, guys?” said Skye, who had a great angle via the security feed on Clint’s locked jaw and tense stance. “Red Alert.”

Jess glanced over. “I’ll get us some drinks,” she said to Natasha and Bishop, and turned away. “OK, Clint, we’ve been over this. You can do it.”

“I can’t!”

“What was that?” asked Security Guy.

“I… uh… can’t. I mean… uh… I’m on duty as well.”

“Yes you can,” said Jess. “Just smile and let him do all the talking.”

None of them really saw what happened, just that all of a sudden, Security Guy was reeling back, clutching at his abdomen. A blood stain—not enough to be life-threatening, just alarming—was spreading across his white shirt.

Clint turned and booked it out of there as fast as he dared.

 

“A fork? Really?” Jess asked later.

She, Clint, and Natasha sat on the edge of Phil’s apartment building roof, dangling their feet off the side and passing a bottle of vodka between them. Natasha had insisted on being the one to pick it out, so it was decent vodka at least. Nobody trusted Clint’s choice of alcohol since the Great Entertainment Center Explosion of ’14.

Clint shrugged. “It was handy.”

“It was sloppy,” said Natasha.

“Oh, excuse me, Ms. Six Knives Strapped to My Person at All Times.”

“Seven.” Natasha turned away to hide her smile. “You didn’t count the one in my bra.”

“Was that—was that a joke?” Jess elbowed her in the ribs.

“Pretty sure I was counting that one,” Clint mumbled.

“Anyway,” Natasha continued, “you can do plenty of damage with a fork, if you know how.”

“Are you offering to teach me fork fencing?”

“Fork-fu?” giggled Jess.

“If you like,” said Natasha, handing him the bottle, and she didn’t bother to cover up her hope that he’d take her up on it.

Clint squirmed a little under her gaze, but dredged up a smile. “Why is it I always get into those situations, anyway? I was supposed to charm him, not stab him. How do you manage it, Jess? You’re a natural at these things.”

“I’m really not,” said Jess, with uncharacteristic seriousness.

Clint frowned at her, confused.

“It’s all practice. I….” She trailed off, then, as if coming to a decision, took a deep breath. “I grew up in a cult, in Central Europe. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, or talk to outsiders. I was a total cheerleader for the One True Way. Except, you know, I had no idea what a cheerleader was.”

“What happened?”

“I met Phil. Back when he was in the CIA, he worked with Interpol to bring us down. Boy did I hate him back then.”

“What did he do?”

Jess huffed a laugh, loaded with irony. “He cared about me. He brought me food. He talked to me like a person.”

“Interpol kept you locked up?”

“No, that’s the worst part. Phil took me to his safe house. He told me I was free to leave any time I wanted. He gave me a key.”

“Heh.” Clint smiled fondly. “Sounds like Phil. But why did you…?”

“I had no idea what the outside world was like. I was terrified. It was much easier to sit there in Phil’s house, hating him. There was nothing to do but watch TV all day long, so Phil said I might as well learn something from it. He started bringing me documentaries on sociology and psychology, pointed out some of the more enlightening reality shows. From there, it was pretty simple to figure out how to manipulate people.”

“Are you—I mean, do you—?”

“No!” Jess interrupted, more emphatically than she intended. Then, more quietly, “No. I don’t use that stuff on friends.”

“You could be using it on me n—”

Natasha, who had sat silent through the whole conversation, shook her head. “Don’t go down that path. It’s no way to live. Trust me, I know.”

“I suppose you knew all this,” Clint said.

She nodded.

“From back when you were in the CIA with Phil?”

“Is that what he told you?” she asked, amused.

“Fine, keep your secrets.” Clint grabbed the bottle back and took a long swig. “Well, at least the party thing wasn’t a total bust.”

“How so?” said Natasha.

Clint twirled a small plastic card through his fingers, before disappearing it up his sleeve. “I got the dude’s security pass,” he said with a grin.

 

Phil handed her a silver case, about the size of a brick. Natasha opened it, to find inside a small vial filled with green liquid. She plucked it gingerly from its foam padding, and held it up to the light, where it glinted with a toxic-looking sheen.

“Why a spider?” she asked.

“What?”

“Why spider-serum, particularly?”

Phil shrugged. “Spiders are weird. People will believe anything about a spider.”

“I take it you didn’t extract venom from an actual spider,” she said, turning the vial from side to side.

Phil smiled. “Alcohol, plus food coloring and menthol.”

Natasha twisted off the cap and gave it an experimental sniff. “Huh,” she said. “Mouthwash.”

“I had to improvise.”

“It won’t stand up to more than a couple seconds’ scrutiny.”

“That’s why it’s Jessica’s job to stop them from scrutinizing it.” He took the vial from her, and snapped it neatly back into the case. “It only has to pass muster for the initial hand-off. Skye’s faked up some study data. Jess just has to convince them that the serum will increase the efficacy of their gene therapy.”

“If anyone can do it, she can.”

“Yep,” said Phil, a proud gleam sneaking in around the corners of his eyes. “We’ve got a pretty good team here.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Natasha, distracted. She slid along the edge of the stainless steel kitchen counter until her hip bumped against his. She leaned in, her hair brushing his shoulder, and said in a low voice, “Speaking of which, I need to talk to you about Clint.”

Phil frowned, all good humor draining away. He didn’t change his stance, but the muscles of his arm were suddenly tense against Natasha’s, his eyes suddenly wide and alert. It reminded her of their

espionage days, except back then, whenever he got this way, things would usually end in either a fight or a fuck—or both.

“What about him?” he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

Natasha stepped in front of him, to look him in the eye. She cupped his cheek with her right hand. “You just told me everything I need to know.”

“And what was that?” Phil didn’t relax, exactly, but some of his tension dissipated.

“That his jealousy is misplaced.”

“He’s jealous?” Phil didn’t sound surprised.

“I can’t decide whether he hates me or whether he wants me.”

“Perhaps it’s both.”

“Then you’re a perfect match,” she retorted, but her flippant tone was unconvincing even to herself.

He reached up to the hand that touched his face, and grasped her wrist gently. He brought her hand down and cupped it between both of his. “I never hated you, Natasha.”

Tears prickled behind Natasha’s eyes, and she felt her face going blank, felt her mind cataloging and filing that emotion. Until recently, Phil was the only person she ever let in, but even with him the programmed instinct to shut off her emotions was sometimes too strong. She looked up into his face and saw the subtle disappointment there, so she pulled her hand out from between his and used the back of her sleeve to brush away the tear she would not have shed. A strange, hiccupping laugh bubbled up at the idea of faking her real emotions. Phil didn’t seem fooled, but he appreciated the effort.

“I…” she took a step back, away from him. “I have preparations to make.” She turned and strode out of the kitchen, almost bumping into Clint as she went. She didn’t let herself pause for long enough to hear what he said to Phil after she had gone.

 

“Ms. Parker, Ms. Rushman,” said Derek Bishop cordially, offering a hand to shake. He swept one arm to indicate that they should precede him into the conference room. The 59th-floor view out over the river was certainly impressive, Natasha noted in a part of her brain incapable of feeling impressed. She also cataloged the four guards they had passed on their way from the elevator, the security cameras in every corner, and the biometric lock on the door across the hall. As she slid into her seat at the conference table, and Jess kept Bishop distracted with small-talk, she muttered this information into her comm.

“Piece of cake,” said Skye, who was dividing her attention between the camera feeds on her bank of monitors and a bag of Flame On! flavor spicy cheese puffs. She dropped a two-minute loop into

the final camera feed. “That’s the cameras dealt with. I cloned Fork-Face’s keycard, and returned the original. Now we just need to get Bishop’s retinal scan to Clint.”

“That should be no problem at all,” said Jess to both Skye and Derek Bishop. He was in the middle of explaining some of the more onerous FDA requirements for clinical trials. “Our spider-serum has already undergone a Phase 1 trial,” she continued, solely to Bishop this time, “and you’ll be happy to know the FDA sees things our way.” She twisted her mouth into a cruel, conspiratorial smile that implied all kinds of things about the FDA’s willingness to take bribes and cave to pressure.

She took the opportunity to lean forward and hold Bishop’s gaze for a few seconds, and the device mounted in the frame of her (totally unnecessary) glasses took a neat scan of his retina.

Jess opened the crisp white folder on the table in front of her and slid it across to rest in front of Bishop. The charts and study data it contained—all trumpeting the serum’s efficacy, all fake—would keep him busy for a while.

“Transferring retinal scan…” said Skye, and pressed a couple of buttons. “Got it.”

Up in the air vent above the hallway, Clint glanced down at the handheld device, and smiled to himself as the scan downloaded. “Got it,” he repeated.

“That’s your cue, boss,” said Skye.

Clint watched through the grille in the floor of the air vent as Phil, dressed in an inexpensive, bland, security-guard-chic suit, hurried to the side of one of the guards and said something into her ear. The guard nodded at the others, and they all hustled out of the hallway, leaving Phil to take up position in front of the secure door.

Quietly, Clint pried open the grille and lowered himself through, hanging by his fingertips for a couple of seconds before dropping on silent feet to the ground.

He and Phil shared a grin. Clint loved this part the best: the thrill of anticipation when he was faced with a safe to crack, a code to break. The adrenaline as he dropped right into the belly of the beast, totally reliant on his own wit and agility.

 

“A little help here!” Clint yelled as he fell backward from the third-floor window, twisting in the air to shoot his grappler at the building and break his fall.

“Really busy,” muttered Jess, still wrapped up in ‘negotiations’ with Derek Bishop, “seeing as I’m your diversion.”

“Hmm?” said Bishop, as he pored over the graphs.

“I said, we’ll be busy,” Jess replied smoothly. “No time for diversions.”

Natasha stood up. “If you’ll excuse me…” She stepped out of the conference room and beelined for the stairwell. “Where are you?” she hissed urgently over the comm.

Clint’s feet pounded on the pavement. “Uh… alley out back?” he panted, dodging around a dumpster. Suddenly, he slammed to a halt. “Oh shit.”

“What?” In the stairwell, Natasha jumped lightly over the railing and down to the landing below. Only 40 floors to go….

“I got company.”

Clint rolled backward, using the dumpster for cover. In the mouth of the alley there had appeared three near-identical guys in identical red-brown tracksuits, all with yellow stripes down the arms. A fourth guy, bigger and balder, had stripped off his jacket in spite of the cold to reveal a white tank. All held baseball bats in a casually threatening fashion.

“That him, bro?” asked the one with his bat resting lightly on his shoulder.

“That’s him, bro,” said the one slapping his bat into the open palm of his left hand.

“He serious, bro?” said the one with the bat across both shoulders, a hand hooked over each end. “Bro, he serious.”

“Bring it, bro,” growled the balder one in the tank top, shifting his bat into a ready stance.

The herd of bros broke into a run, bearing down on Clint with irresistible force.

Clint gave up on the idea of hiding. “Nataaashaaa!” he yelled, shoving the dumpster out into the middle of the alley with the vague hope of slowing them down. “They’re after me!”

“Who’s after you?”

“Some kind of… tracksuit… mafia!” panted Clint, rounding the corner into the street. “Where are you?”

“Get to the corner with the shawarma place,” said Natasha, and by now even she sounded out of breath.

When he got to the schwarma joint, there was no sign of Natasha’s distinctive red bob, and one of the tracksuit mafia came thundering up behind him. Clint ducked under the arc of the baseball bat, glancing wildly around for anything that could help him. Bystanders, noticing the fight one by one, started to yell, running and scrambling to get out of harm’s way. A server at the shawarma restaurant dropped the plate she was carrying and ducked behind the counter. A father shoved his kid behind a parked car.

Clint couldn’t do much dodging; the more the goon swung at him, the more likely someone else was going to get hit. So far, at least, there was no sign of the other tracksuit bros.

He traded blows with the goon, and blocked one powerful swing well enough to grab hold of the guy’s wrist and slam it against the metal post of a street sign. His hand opened, and the bat fell to the ground and rolled away into the gutter.

That evened things up a bit, but the guy was so much bigger that it was only a matter of time before he wore Clint down.

“Any time you’re ready!” Clint yelled into his comm.

“Oh, I ready, bro,” said the tracksuit goon, cracking his knuckles.

The guy swung his fist at Clint, who noted gratefully that at least he wasn’t one for finesse. Clint smartly sidestepped the punch, grabbed the goon’s arm, yanked it until the guy was off-balance, and used his knee as a fulcrum for a judo throw.

Finally, Natasha’s black Corvette screeched to a halt at the intersection. “Get in!” she called.

Clint didn’t need telling twice. Hell, he didn’t need telling once; he was already halfway to the car when Natasha issued her order.

“’Bout damn time!” he said, but he was grinning as the car peeled away from the corner.

They weren’t out of hot water yet; as they crossed through the next intersection, a white van came barreling up from their left, heedless of the red light. Natasha yanked the wheel to the right, then to the left, and swerved around the van with a few inches to spare. The tires squealed across the surface of the road as she used her momentum to swing into a left turn, gaining a few seconds on the van as it struggled to turn around.

The car sped along the road to a chorus of blaring horns, Natasha weaving through the heavy four-o’clock traffic. Clint twisted around in his seat to watch out the rear window for pursuit.

“Nice moves back there,” said Natasha, eyes glued to the road ahead.

“Thanks.”

“Nice to know you pay attention.”

“Of course I pay attention,” said Clint. “You can train a circus monkey.”

Natasha swerved around a garbage truck that had stopped in their lane. “Is that what you are, a circus monkey?”

Clint didn’t reply for several seconds. Finally he blurted, “Are you still in love with him?”

“Not really the time, Clint!” she said, eyes flicking between the white van in the rearview, and the intoxicated woman staggering into the crosswalk ahead.

Clint’s own eyes flicked down to his lap, where his left had had a deathgrip on his knee. He forced it open, flexed it a couple of times. “I guess not,” he said, too quietly.

There was a long pause, filled with the squealing of brakes and the screech of rubber against asphalt. And then, “Yes,” said Natasha simply.

“…What?”

“Yes, I am still in love with him.”

He glanced over at her. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said she projected smooth, even calm, her features the glassy surface of a still pond. But he could sense the currents that ran beneath. “I just…” he stopped himself, tried again. “I wasn’t expecting you to be honest about that.”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying.”

Clint was distracted by the sight of a white van careening around the corner behind them. “There they are!”

“I see them.”

“They’re gaining on us!”

“I know.”

Natasha turned the car abruptly down an alley, and he saw the van go speeding by behind them. She counted five seconds, and slammed into reverse. As they exited the alley, Clint saw the van turning a corner, obviously trying to circle round and cut them off at the other end.

Natasha, now at a more sedate pace, wove a convoluted route through the streets, eventually pulling into an alley in the warehouse district. She clicked the control clipped to the sun visor, and a garage door slid quietly up behind the brick façade. She rolled the car to a quiet stop next to Skye’s van, Jemma.

Clint and Natasha’s doors slammed in quick succession, but before Clint could open the back of the surveillance van, Natasha called out.

“Wait,” she said.

He turned, his hand on the door.

Natasha strode over to him, stopping close enough to touch. She held his gaze, clear-eyed.

“I…” she cleared her throat. “I don’t love easily.”

Clint’s brow creased. “O…kay?” he said.

“I don’t love easily, so when I do, it’s harder to take it back.” Her eyes flicked down, then back up to his. “In fact, I’ve been in love exactly once.”

She fell quiet a moment, while that sunk in, like a rock, to Clint’s gut.

“I’m not here to come between you and Phil,” she said finally. “You’re good for him; better than I ever was.”

Clint made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a hiccup.

“You don’t see it, do you?” Natasha lifted one hand near his face, thought better of it, and smoothed the front of his shirt instead. “He gets so invested in this job that he sometimes forgets why he does it. You remind him that there’s more to life.”

“And you don’t?”

Natasha gave a rueful smile. “I think you know me well enough by now to know I can become… very goal-oriented. No, I’m not the one to keep Phil’s feet on the ground.”

Clint returned her smile and rubbed the back of his neck—where he’d twisted it, falling out of a third-floor window. “Yeah, I kinda doubt that I am either. Anyway,” he turned decisively, took a breath, and wrenched the van door open, “that’s enough sharing and caring for today.”

Inside the van, the other three sat arrayed, facing the door: Jess with a raised eyebrow; Skye with amusement and cheesy puffs; and Phil, weary, with a guarded expression. His tie was loosened and he had an abrasion on his right temple.

“Uh… guys?” Clint began.

“You do know the comms were on this whole time?” said Skye, holding out the bag of cheesy puffs to Clint.

In reply, he could only drop his head into his hand. Sometime, when he was not dying of shame and had the power of speech again, he would have to ask Skye to design him a gadget that would open up the ground to swallow him. He was sure he’d get plenty of use out of it.

“I’m aware,” said Natasha coolly, looking at Phil with a challenge in her eyes.

 

Clint sat in his usual spot on the back of the sofa, his feet on the seat. On the TV, muted, Derek Bishop was being led away from the front of Bishop Labs’ HQ in handcuffs, while a gaggle of reporters mouthed urgent questions at him. Clint scooped a giant spoonful of caramel gelato out of the carton in his hand and put the whole thing in his mouth, savoring it.

“Jess is going to kill you,” remarked Natasha’s voice at his shoulder. “That’s her favorite flavor.”

He startled, but caught himself before he overbalanced.

Natasha took advantage of his distraction to pluck the spoon from his hand and scoop up some gelato for herself. She slid onto the sofa beside him, and instead of nestling into the pile of cushions on the seat, she perched on the back next to Clint, bumping shoulders.

“What are you doing?” he said, trying to distract himself from her warmth against him.

“Dividing her anger,” Natasha replied. “She probably won’t kill us both.”

Clint snorted, skeptical, but he let her take the gelato. No point in arguing with a woman who could disembowel him with the spoon.

There was a pause while they took turns to spoon up gelato. The TV ran on silently in the background. “BISHOP LABORATORIES CEO IMPLICATED IN MISMANAGED DRUG TRIALS,” screamed the news ticker. “TWO DEAD, FIVE IN CRITICAL CONDITION.”

Clint had seen Natasha use her sex appeal plenty of times, on cons--on men, on women, on anyone who could further her goals. It was a tool, a weapon. The sexy food maneuver was a particular favorite of hers; she'd purse her lips as she placed a morsel into her mouth, lick her fingers, lick the spoon, flick her gaze between her mark's eyes and their lips. Her mouth would be painted that particular shade of red, her lips plump and glossy.

He'd seen it, and it did nothing for him. He knew the tricks for what they were. Hell, he'd used some of them over the years.

Right now, though, in her oversized heather-gray sweatshirt and her navy blue leggings, her hair in a sloppy half-ponytail, unselfconsciously swiping bites of his legitimately-pilfered gelato, he was drawn to her in a way that no black silk dress could ever provoke. She was making the effort, he knew, to let him in, to allow him her vulnerability. Because he was Phil's, just as she was Phil's, in a way that he could never be. But maybe that was OK. Maybe they didn't have to mean the same thing.

“You did that,” said Natasha, nodding at the screen. “We brought him to justice because of you.”

“I nearly got my head bashed in by a bunch of guys in tracksuits—”

“Really bad tracksuits,” she laughed.

“—shouting, ‘Bro!’”

“Still,” she said, sobering a little, and leaning her head on his shoulder, “you dug up the crucial evidence.”

A soft sound came from the doorway behind them. Clint looked over his shoulder, and when he saw Phil he scrambled to his feet.

“Please don’t get up on my account,” said Phil. "It's good to see you two getting along.”

He picked up the remote and clicked off the TV.

"We need to talk.”

Clint tensed. That phrase was way too familiar to him, and it never signaled anything good. He didn't think Phil would dump him in front of company—even Natasha—but that would still be an improvement over his last dumping, in which he ended up wearing a bowl of noodles.

Natasha, for her part, swiveled calmly so she leaned against the back of the sofa, her face neutral as she waited for Phil to speak.

“We've been dancing around this,” said Phil, “and it's causing some tension among the team.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “The team.”

“OK,” Phil allowed, “it's causing some tension for me. And, I think, for the two of you as well. Jess and Skye mostly just think it's hilarious.”

Natasha nodded philosophically.

Clint still couldn't speak, all his tension rising into his throat and choking him.

“Guess I'm going first,” said Phil in the face of their silence. He took a breath. “Clint, I love you.”

“But?”

“No ‘but’. I love you. I was in a spiral after I left the CIA; you evened me out. My life has never been better than it is now—and, yes, I'm counting my marriage to Maria. There were so many reasons why what was never going to work out.”

“So many,” put in Natasha.

“Yes, thank you,” said Phil, but there was an answering twinkle in his eye. “My point is, I love you, Clint, and nothing is going to change that. Not even your attraction to Natasha.”

“I know, you've had these feelings for years and—wait, what?” Clint broke off, baffled. “My attraction?”

Phil's expression was pained, Natasha's amused. Clint looked back and forth between the two of them, too confused to be embarrassed.

“Yes, your--what was it Skye said?--your ‘epic dorky flirting’. I know I still have feelings for Natasha, and—”he shared a glance with her-- “apparently that's mutual. This doesn't have to change things.”

Natasha shook her head. “Oh, it has to change things. But change can be good.”

“So, what are you saying?” asked Clint with an incredulous laugh. “We have some kind of a threesome?”

“Something like that,” said Natasha.

“We don't have to,” Phil rushed to add, “if you're not comfortable with it.”

It was Clint's turn to shake his head. “I... I thought I was getting dumped,” he replied faintly. He turned to Natasha. “You really want this?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “But you said it yourself: I'm a child. I'm a walking disaster.”

Natasha snorted. “Child, I will give you. But I never said ‘walking disaster’. Anyway, I could stand to lighten up.”

She stepped in closer, and he reflexively circled her waist with his arms. She stood on tiptoes and brushed a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I won't argue with that,” came Phil's voice from behind her, and Clint had to stifle the impulse to jump back, away from her. This was OK; this was allowed.

Natasha smoothed the palms of her hands up Clint's chest, along his shoulders, and down his arms, gently pushing them down so that she could step back.

“You should know,” she said, “I'm not in love with you.”

Clint's face fell. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

“But I could be. You are the kind of person I could love. And, if we're going to do this, I want you to know what kind of person I am. I don't ‘fall’ in love; I step into it, with eyes open. If that makes me cold, well,” a self-deprecating smile crossed her face, “call me caramel gelato.”

“OK, caramel gelato,” Clint said, stepping toward her again. “Eyes open.”

He pulled her back into the circle of his arms.

“Not for the kissing,” he added, before their mouths could touch. “Eyes closed is OK for the kissing.” Then he bent his head and thoroughly kissed the smile off her lips.

Phil leaned against the back of the sofa to watch them, but as soon as they heard the scuff of his feet on the floor, without breaking the kiss, they each reached out a hand to reel him in.

“Finally!” came another voice.

All three broke apart to see Skye, halfway down the spiral staircase, an open laptop balanced on her forearm.

“Have you been up there the whole time?” asked Clint.

“Phil shoved a computer at me and told me to be elsewhere,” she replied, sliding her computer onto the counter and herself onto a barstool. “He wasn't exactly subtle.”

“And you're—” Clint broke off, cleared his throat. “You're OK with this?”

“Hey, you do you. Not like anything about our lives is exactly normal... bro.”

Clint cringed. “Nooo!” he said, through his laughter. “Don't call me bro. Getting flashbacks here!”

“Yeah, well, that might be helpful. I’ve been looking into your tracksuit mafia, and I think I’ve got us a new job.”

“I thought we were all taking a day off,” said Phil. “All work and no play makes Skye a dull girl.”

“No rest for the wicked,” countered Natasha. Then, she leaned in to the triangle created by their bodies to say in a low voice, “And later, I intend to be very wicked.”

Then, she turned smartly and walked over to see Skye’s research, leaving the two men gaping in her wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me [on Tumblr](http://cyndisision.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
